Topic: NewsBusters
Godwin's Law? What Godwin's Law?
Noel Sheppard uses a Sept. 23 NewsBusters post to endorse smearing President Obama as Hitler, decreeing it acceptable political discourse apparently because nobody killed President Bush aafter some critics likened him to Hitler. Sheppard highlighted a video that mashed up the audio of a "Rachel Maddow Show" segment asking whether "calling the president Hitler is an implicit call for politically motivated violence" with, according to sheppard, "an overlay of pictures and footage of demonstrations when George W. Bush was president." Sheppard called the video "an extraordinarily powerful demonstration of how hypocritical the current liberal media position is concerning this matter."
Actually, the hypocrite here is Sheppard. Here's what his boss, Brent Bozell, wrote in a Jan. 7, 2004, column:
Comparing an American President to the fiendish fascist architect of death camps used to be seen as beyond the pale ... Comparing American political figures or policies to Nazi Germany – unless it’s the actions of the American Nazi Party or their ilk – is the first mark of a reckless kook.
Indeed, the same ConWeb folks currently condoning or promulgating Obama-Nazi comparisons -- or in a previous administration, Clinton-Nazi comparisons -- were utterly offended by a submission to a MoveOn.org ad contest made a Bush-Hitler comparison.
Accuracy in Media's K. Daniel Glover highlighted the same video in a Sept. 23 blog post, though he attempted to obscure things by stating that "People who resort to such analogies on either side of the political spectrum are ignorant of Godwin's Law and should be condemned." Will Glover condemn his employer, which just two months ago handed over its AIM Report to Hilmar von Campe, a Nazi-smearer extrordinaire who, in his AIM column, likened the Obama administration to "Hitler's policy to get total power"? Indeed, an editor's note at the top of von Campe's column specifically states how he "offers comparisons between Nazi Germany and America today."
Perhaps Sheppard and Glover can explain why what was so offensive to them and their fellow travelers in 2004 is perfectly acceptable now.
